The present invention relates to an improved moveable valve structure for perfume atomizers and particularly to one which can be actuated by a rather slight downward pressure.
Referring to FIG. 1 which is a partial longitudinal cross-sectional view of a perfume bottle of U.S. Pat. No. 4,025,046. The perfume bottle mainly comprises a hollow piston (1) in which a valve member (2) is disposed. The valve member (2) includes a rod (20) and a sleeve (21) wherein the upper half (201) of the rod (20) is received in the hollow piston (1) while the lower half (202) thereof is associated with a spring (3) and is located in a valve seat (4). The sleeve (21) is provided at its lower end with an inward projection (210). In operation, firstly press an atomizer head (5) downward which in turn may drive the hollow piston (1) together with the rod (20) downward such that the sleeve (21) can move downward along the outer wall (40) of the valve seat (4).
By the fluidtight contact between the projection (210) of the sleeve (21) and the outer wall (40) of the valve seat (4), the communication between the inside and the outside of the valve seat (4) is terminated. At the instant, the piston (1) continuously moves downward thereby the liquid perfume contained in the outside of the valve seat (4) is compressed and the pressure generated by the pressurized liquid can only be applied to the shoulder (211) of the sleeve (21). As soon as the liquid pressure overcomes the compression force provided by the spring (3), the sleeve (21) will be forced downward to disengage a valve (203) from a top opening (10) of the hollow piston (1) so that the liquid perfume can be sprayed out from the perfume bottle through the top opening (10) and a nozzle (not shown) of the atomizer head (5). After the liquid perfume contained in the outside of the valve seat (4) is sprayed out from the perfume bottle, the pressure therein is reduced so that the spring (3) will force the valve member (2) upward to its orginal position and meanwhile the liquid perfume contained in the lower storage chamber thereof will be sucked into valve seat (4) for the user's ready use.
However, the disadvantage of the aforesaid structure is that the user has to heavily press the atomizer head (5) downward to actuate the valve member (2) because the shoulder (211) of the sleeve (21) of the valve member (2) fails to respond to the incrasing liquid pressure promptly.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to obviate the mitigate the above-mentioned drawback.